The Health and Human Values minor promotes an interdisciplinary understanding of health and health care. It enables students to appreciate the strengths and limits of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities as they seek to explain and to achieve a measure of control over disease, illness, and suffering. The interdisciplinary minor helps students to grasp how legal, economic, and political institutions influence the production, distribution, and delivery of health care services. It also provides students with the analytical and ethical skills necessary to apply the principles of scientific integrity in biomedical research.

Health and Human Values courses emphasize the role ethical values play in defining problems as “medical,” worthy of scientific study, calling for mobilization of social, as well as individual resources. The courses help students to develop the analytical skills that permit clear thinking and writing about the complex trade-offs involved in developing, using, and paying for health care.

If both programs are in agreement, up to two courses may count for both a major and the Medical Humanities interdisciplinary minor.

The Davidson/CMC Connection

In 1990, Davidson College and the Carolinas Medical Center joined in a formal agreement “to cooperate and share resources toward the common betterment of health care, the education and training of physicians, and improved understanding of the relationship between medicine and society.” Under the auspices of this agreement, Davidson students enjoy access to an expanded range of educational opportunities that only a large teaching hospital can provide in biomedical research.

Additional Information

Students are invited to suggest courses for their interdisciplinary minor that are consistent with the purpose of the interdisciplinary minor and their major. Permission must be obtained by the Director of Health and Human Values.